The D.C. Office of Campaign Finance confirmed today it will investigate a complaint against Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I-At-Large).

The complaint, filed earlier this week by rival D.C. At-Large Council candidate Karim Marshall, says Silverman conducted a telephone poll of residents in Ward 3 ahead of the June 21 primary election, and discussed the results with her preferred candidate in the race. That, Marshall claims, amounted to improper coordination between campaigns and an in-kind campaign contribution that should have been reported.

Silverman told DCist/WAMU in June that she properly disclosed the poll on her campaign finance reports, and that she conducted it merely because she was curious where voters stood ahead of the election.

The Ward 3 race began as the most crowded in this year’s election cycle. Nine Democratic candidates initially threw their hats in the ring for the job to replace sitting Councilmember Mary Cheh, who announced in February that she would not run for re-election. In June — just weeks before the primary — three candidates bowed out in quick succession: Tricia Duncan, Ben Bergmann, and Henry Cohen. All three threw their support behind Matt Frumin, a former Ward 3 ANC commissioner. Silverman was among the sitting councilmembers who also endorsed Frumin, along with Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) and Charles Allen (D-Ward 6).

After Frumin won the primary with 38% of the vote, his main challenger Eric Goulet — a more conservative Democrat who came in second at 31% — claimed things might have gone differently if Silverman hadn’t conducted the phone poll. The poll asked respondents questions about citywide races as well as the Ward 3 contest.

In a tweet days after the primary, Goulet claimed Silverman conducted the poll, “to influence a race in which she was not competing. This was unethical, and possibly illegal conduct, falsely disguised as progressive politics.”

Ward 3 ANC Jason Fink told Washington City Paper that Silverman’s poll was simply “scaring candidates to drop out to support Frumin.”

In June, shortly after the poll was conducted, Silverman told DCist/WAMU that she discussed the results of the poll with people in Ward 3, but didn’t share the poll itself with anyone. She repeated that claim in an interview Friday, saying she doesn’t have plans to release the poll.

“I welcome the investigation because there’s nothing there,” Silverman says. Marshall, she says, is “using a smoke machine telling people there’s fire when there’s nothing there.”

The city’s campaign finance laws state a shared poll must be disclosed as an “in-kind contribution,” and are therefore bound by the city’s limits on campaign giving.

Marshall tells DCist/WAMU that he filed the complaint in order to get clarity on the rules around campaign coordination ahead of the general election in November.

“We can’t have ambiguity going into the general, particularly when we’re dealing with the allocation and use, and allowable use, of public funds,” Marshall says. “And it needs to be clear whether or not campaigns are able to coordinate. If there’s impermissible coordination, that’s actually a bigger threat than the misuse of funds.”

Silverman continues to deny that she worked with any other campaign or provided the poll’s results to anyone else. “There was no coordination,” she said.

In a statement, the OCF wrote the complaint “has been docketed and will be listed in the August [statistics] during the September 6, 2022, Monthly Meeting of the Board of Elections.”

But the office wrote it will not discuss the case publicly until a decision is issued.

Martin Austermuhle contributed reporting. This post was updated with language to specify Marshall’s allegations against Silverman.